Differences between MA and UT

Many of you may be wondering how Massachusetts is different than Utah, well here are a few subtle differences:

- The roads in MA are pliable so they have groove indentations from tires

- All the milk here has caps that pop off instead of twisting off

- There are tons and tons of trees

- Steep hills but no moutains

- No skateboarders

- No '25 feet from the entrance of a state building' smoking law

- Fewer lanes and more traffic

- No turning lane...

- No concept of North, East, South or West

- More universities

- More pro-sports teams

- "Shaws" instead of "Smiths"

- Fewer country music stations, but more jazz stations

- Ice storms instead of inversions

- Everything is within an hour's drive

So Lauren and I recently enjoyed conference weekend...but had to watch over the internet, so we dragged our bed into the office to watch in there. Here's some pics:

She's always gone too long, anytime she goes away...

Well, I'm livin' the bachelor life once again. Lauren has gone to California for her friend Kimi's wedding (who traveled to our wedding in Logan, so it's only fair). Lauren will be in Utah the weekend of the 23rd and then back home on the 26th.

Lauren and I bought this camera this last week, so that should help us put some nice pics on here:



...and we also got this china hutch (the picture is not in our apartment...):



In other news...

- we've been toying with the idea of purchasing our own home, but it looks like we won't qualify for the first time homebuyer tax credit because we previously owned our mobile home in Logan.

- I had to toss the 4 million+ brain tumor cells I was growing this last week because they got contaminated...Yup, that means my last two weeks have been a total waste.

- I'm not too happy that my Red Sox lost their first two games to the Angels, but Lauren and her family (who attended the first game together in Anaheim) were pretty stoked about it.

The past events in MA.

Hey guys I am sorry that we are so bad about our blog... We finally took some pictures to show you guys how it is living out here and what we have been up too. But if you are on facebook you probably already seen most of them. Anyways on the news side of things, James started his first core class recently and is so glad that he only has to take one class, even if it was more difficult than what he is used to. He got a calling as a primary teacher and a scout leader (ironic i know). I also got a calling as achievement girls leader (which is taking a couple years off my life i am sure lol) and helping James' as a primary teacher. I have about 12 girls in my class and i am the only one there and James has at the most four boys in his scouts so i am extremely jealous! We recently Had some friends over and it was their little girls birthday so we celebrated. I made her a princess jasmine cake and she helped decorate it. James has been trying to teach Jon and Stacia (our friends)how to play Canasta.... He really wants another couple to play with! Play two player just isn't the same. Well anyways I am super excited to be coming out to Utah in October! It is coming up so fast!

We Love you all so much and of course we miss our family and friends like crazy!
-Lauren

10 years ago in Salt Lake City

The tornado hits in the last few seconds of the video...so unreal!

2%

Quick fact: The journal "Science" reported recently that only 2% of scientists regularly blog.

I suppose it's up to me to carry the banner. :P

Another sciencey note: I downloaded a free bibliography program this week called "Mendeley." I've never used this kind of software before, such as the $300 "EndNote" or "Papers" for mac. Nevertheless I was pretty blown away by the fact that this program can automa

tically read science journal papers that I download as PDFs, it can automatically figure out the authors, publishers etc. You can add notes and highlight the papers, organize them in folders, search them etc. But the best magic-like part for me was when I opened up Microsoft word and downloaded the plug-in for that so I could just drag and drop the name of the PDFs from Mendeley to word and it automatically created a perfectly formated Bibliography!!! And what's more is there was a drop down menu where if you selected a different format (APA, MLA or a journal specific format) all the bibliography entrances would auto adjust to the desired format!!!

Okay so this thing really isn't new and I'm sure most everyone has used this kind of thing before, but it was new to me...and having spent many many hours creating bibliographies as an undergraduate, this just blew me away.